Nicoustic secures 8.6 mNOK in funding

With this support from the Research Council of Norway, Nicoustic aims to further develop and commercialize novel technology for non-intrusive level measurement of different layers in separators and other vessels.

More specifically, Nicoustic intends to further develop capabilities to measure liquid, foam and emulsion interface layers. Moreover, they will explore how fouling on the inside of the separator wall influences the measurements.

Furthermore, they will perform vessel integrity measurement experiments using existing hardware and conduct research into novel hardware manufacturing methods that will allow them to set up production locally.

The main R&D partners are Fraunhofer IKTS (Dresden) and SINTEF Multiphase Flow Laboratory located (Tiller).

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We need reliable measurements

The background for the technology is that there is an unmet need for reliable measurement of multiphase levels in oil & gas separation equipment, especially when it comes to measurement of sand/solid layers, liquid interface levels as well as emulsion and foam layers.

This need comes from the fact that improved level measurement will lead to less equipment downtime and an opportunity to better optimize production.

Other industries than oil & gas (for example biofuel and chemicals production) face many of the same challenges in their separation processes.

Non-intrusive sensors

Nicoustic has already demonstrated that their technology is able to accurately measure levels of solids and liquids in laboratory and pilot scale.

The biggest differentiating factor compared with other measurement methods is that their sensors are non-intrusive (they are mounted on the outside of the vessel) and there is no radioactive source. This is a big advantage with respect to installation and maintenance cost and ease.

More R&D needs to be performed before a commercial product can be launched, which is now possible thanks to the support from The Research Council of Norway.

Help with project development

GCE Ocean Technology offers help with project development to its members, and Nicoustic has used this multiple times.

– Also for this successful grant application we have had several meetings with R&D advisors from GCE Ocean Technology who gave us valuable advice on how to reformulate certain phrases to make the message clearer, if there is any missing information and so on. A skilled set of extra eyes and some good advice we appreciate a lot, says Dmitri Gorski, Co-Founder/ Vice President, Sales and Marketing at Nicoustic.